Rob Oller commentary: Lying is the norm, and that's the truth

And if I'm lying, so what? In sports, fibbing is no more of a sin than sneezing without covering your mouth -- a nasty but nonpunishable offense.

Honestly, honestly, I've never understood why "do not bear false witness" is considered only a wink-wink commandment in sports. Pay attention to many athletes, and even more to their coaches, and notice that truth carries all the integrity of a Pete Rose interview on 60 Minutes.

Two recent incidents illustrate the propensity to perjure. We begin where falsehoods seem to flock: Bill Belichick.

Belichick, who coaches the New England Patriots -- which makes him, in theory, a leader of men -- has been known to hit the backspace key on truth telling. Two years ago, Belichick said he absolutely, positively thought he was operating within NFL rules after the league fined him for his role in taping New York Jets' defensive signals during a game.

This past weekend, Belichick was back at it, explaining that Pats quarterback Tom Brady sat out the second half of Saturday's exhibition game against Washington because the coaching staff wanted to evaluate the backups. Never mind that New England's own media-relations department announced that Brady had suffered a shoulder injury right before halftime. Mr. Bill said Brady's shoulder wasn't the issue, so of course it wasn't.

I don't mean to pick on Belichick (hope the lie detector isn't working), only to use him to demonstrate the habit of coaches crossing their fingers behind their backs when supposedly telling the truth.

If the Belichick stuff seems relatively harmless, a more serious case of Liar Liar is brewing at Michigan, where a he-said, he-said scenario threatens to ignite the football program.

The Detroit Free Press reported that a handful of current and former Michigan players allege that the program is breaking NCAA rules regarding hours spent on training and practice sessions.

Coach Rich Rodriguez and the university's compliance director both deny that rules have been broken.

Someone is lying. Either RichRod is overworking his players according to NCAA rules, or the players, who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution, are making stuff up. Both sides of the story are plausible. On one hand, Rodriguez, who has been under the gun since arriving from West Virginia, could be desperate to whip the Wolverines into shape. Or maybe the complaining players are malcontents with an ax to grind.

Maybe lying gets a passing grade in sports because it looks saintly compared to the cheating that is commonplace today. Whatever the case, it's almost the norm in sports to push truth to the line of fiction, where it spills into gray shades of reality. Where "mostly true" is considered fact. Then there is the old standby of plausible deniability, a neat trick used to confuse and conceal.

Lest we further impugn the entire coaching fraternity, it must be said that the art of lying is not limited to the drill instructors. If I had a dime for every time I heard a baseball general manager say, "We tried to keep him," I would be able to afford both Cliff Lee and CC Sabathia.

And if I had a nickel for every time an athlete said, "It's not about the money," I would be rich enough to buy the New York Yankees.

Speaking of the Bronx Bombers, they prove that even the corner office is not immune from saying one thing and meaning another. Upon purchasing the Yankees in 1973, George Steinbrenner pronounced that he would be a hands-off owner.